Introducing the New NACIQI

Submitted by Doug Lederman on May 28, 2010 - 3:00am

Leaders of the House of Representatives made their appointments this week to the Education Department's accreditation advisory committee, fleshing out the membership of the newly reconstituted National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity in a way that makes it hard to imagine the panel will ever agree on anything. House Democrats appointed the presidents of three public colleges and universities, while House Republicans selected the presidents of two for-profit colleges and a top official at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Congress killed[1] the last iteration of the panel in the 2008 Higher Education Opportunity Act, but planned for its re-creation in different form, with appointees by both branches of Congress as well as the Education Department. The panel has not met since 2008, but the department announced in April that the committee would meet in mid-September.

The 18 members of the committee, and their sponsors, are:

Benjamin Allen. president, U. of Northern Iowa (House Democrats)

Bruce Cole, former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities (Senate Republicans)

William E. (Brit) Kirwan, chancellor, University System of Maryland (House Democrats)

Arthur Keiser, chancellor, Keiser University (House Republicans)

Daniel Klaich, chancellor of the Nevada System of Higher Education (Senate Democrats)